This is a very quick, seasonal meal and I get to proclaim that orecchiette is my favorite pasta type ever. Some say ‘little ears’ but I think they look like little UFOs! We used a combination of two tomatoes from the garden and one heirloom local tomato procured elsewhere. I like using orecchiette here, as it is about the same size and shape as all the chopped vegetables.

The sauce is super quick, just tomatoes, veggies, olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar. You can marinate your own mozzarella balls or just buy the already-marinated ones. They will melt into the sauce and you will like it.

Summer Pasta with Veggies and Marinated Mozzarella
12 oz Orecchiette Pasta
2 tbsp + more olive oil
1/2 white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 yellow, orange or red bell peppers
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3-4 tomatoes (heirloom or garden fresh are great!)
1 tbsp capers
2 tbsp basil, chopped
10 small marinated, fresh mozzarella balls (Boccini), halved
salt & pepper to taste

Start your pasta water (get it boiling). Cut the bell peppers in half and remove the cores and seeds. Push down flat on a foil covered baking sheet and stick under the broiler to roast. Let the skins get all blackened.

Put them in a plastic or paper bag and let steam for a few minutes. Peel and chop. Set aside.

Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a large pan and saute the onion for 7-8 minutes. You want them soft and with a little color. Then add the garlic and saute for a minute or so more. You can cook the pasta about now.

Chop up the tomatoes and toss in a bowl with a little more olive oil, the capers and the balsamic. Give it a little salt and pepper. You could seriously just eat this with a spoon now, but if you add it to the pasta, it will be even better.

Add the chopped, roasted bell peppers to the pan with the onions, along with the tomato mixture. Toss a bit to mix.

When the pasta is done, add it to the pan and toss. You only want the tomoatoes in the hot pan for a few minutes, so plan when your pasta is done accordingly. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

Add the basil, mix and pour the pasta out into a serving bowl.

Add the halved mozzarella balls, toss again and serve.

So simple and tasty for Summer — or, the end of Summer.

This is a meal inspired by a dinner that jwa had at his parents house a little while ago. He had gone down there to help them with some things and returned with tales of steak with garlic in it. Mmmmm…garlic in steak. I was intrigued. Such a great idea!

So, we grilled some up, with the addition of chimichurri sauce and some grilled veggies.

This was also a great opportunity to use out new outdoor grill — I still love it!

For the Argentinian Chimichurri Sauce:
Adapted from a recipe from Bob Blumer, The Surreal Gourmet
1/2 cup lightly packed chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves
3 to 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes
2 tbsp shallot or onion, minced
3/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp sherry wine vinegar, or red wine vinegar
1-2 tbsp lemon juice

Steak:
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
3 tbsp kosher salt
2 1/2 pounds rib-eye, New York strip, or sirloin steak, 1 1/2 inches thick
3 cloves of garlic, cut into slivers

Preheat your grill. You could also do this inside on a grill pan. If you cook on a grill pan, omit the salted water/cayenne mixture. Just salt the steak before cooking.

Place all chimichurri sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until well chopped, but not pureed. Reserve.

Dissolve cayenne pepper and salt in 1 cup hot water. Transfer to a squeeze container (or transfer to a bowl and use a basting brush.

Using a small knife, make slits in each steak and push the garlic slivers into the slits. Brush a little olive oil on the steaks.

Place the steak directly over a hot grill (oil the rack first), and cook for 6-7 minutes per side for medium rare. Baste 1-2 times with the salt/cayenne mixture. This will also help keep flare-ups under control. (But you’ll still get a nice crust).

When you turn the steak, that’s a good time to add your veggies. We did bell pepper, zucchini and portobello mushrooms.

Spoon chimichurri sauce over steak. Serve with the grilled veggies and baguette.

It’s really good!

And if you are really lucky, there will be some leftovers to put on a baguette from Little T’s and make a steak sandwich!

Be sure to slather a little chimichurri on there and perhaps even some horseradish mayo!

Is it hot out? Make this then. There’s a little stove-top time with the pancetta, but only for a few minutes. Besides, it’s totally worth it!

The pancetta in this salad is from a recipe for Frisee with Pears and Honeyed Lardons in The New Spanish Table (my new favorite cookbook, it seems), but I kind of just used what I had rather than following the recipe completely. So, I ended up with spinach, dried apricots and pecans. Not a bad combination at all!

Spinach Salad with Candied Pancetta, Pecans & Dried Apricots
3 ounces pancetta, diced
2 tsp honey
1 tbsp red wine vinegar (+ 2 tbsp more for dressing)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 bag baby spinach, washed and spun dry
1/2 cup dried apricots, quartered
1/4 cup toasted pecans
course sea salt & freshly ground pepper
Garnish: Cheese — shaved parmesan, asiago or something like that works well, I used Robusto (hmmm, I think feta would also be quite tasty)

Place pancetta in a small skillet and cook, over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes, until it starts to render its fat. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking until it’s light brown. Pour a little fat out if there is too much. Add the honey and 1 tablespoon of the vinegar, stirring until the honey dissolves. This will happen quickly and it can burn very easily. Be careful! I actually had to make two batches because I burnt my first batch. So sad.

Remove the pancetta from the pan and let cool on a plate. If it hardens up like panchetta brittle, just break it up.

Make the dressing — whisk the remaining vinegar with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Next, toss the salad with the apricots, pecans, dressing and cooled pancetta. Add the dressing and toss some more until the leaves are coated. Top with some cheese.

It is so good! Better than a spinach sald has any right to be. I am giving credit to the crunchy, sweet pancetta.

Okay, there should be another post this week and I promise that it will not have any pork in it! Need a break from pork. Hard to believe but true…

Still pretty warm from the oven!

Okay, so this pie has been out of the oven for about 18 hours now and it is 3/4 gone. Did I mention that we were asleep for like 8 of those hours? Right, so this is a really good pie!

The crust recipe is Dorie Greenspan’s Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough which is quite simply, the best pie dough I have ever made. Start with the pie dough. You can even make it a day ahead. I did this, rolling my bottom crust out the and letting it sit in the pie pan overnight in the refrigerator. The top crust just hung out in disc-form and then I rolled that one out before baking.

I kind of based the filling recipe on a number of recipes I found online and in cookbooks. It was a little from Column A + a little from Column B sort of thing. But first, onto the crust!

Dorrie Greenspan’s Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough
For a 9 inch Double Crust
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 sticks very cold unsalted butter, cut into tbsp size pieces
1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
About 1/2 cup ice water
My Addition: Zest of 1/2 an orange (you can zest the other half the orange for the filling)

Put the flour, sugar, orange zest and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour.

You can of course, also use a pastry blender thingie or two forks or even your fingers. Don’t overdo the mixing - what you’re aiming for is to have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 6 tablespoons of the water - add a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour.

If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine.

Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a work surface. Honestly, I added about 10 tablespoons of water to mine. So, you may need more than 6 here.

Divide the dough in half. Gather each half into a ball, flatten each ball into a disk and wrap each half in plastic. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling.

Roll the first dough disc out on a floured surface and lay the dough down in your pie pan. Trim your edges with a 1/2 inch overhang. Continue with making the pie now or chill the bottom crust in the pie pan and the disc for the top crust in the fridge overnight.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie - Filling
2.5 cups rhubarb stalks, ends trimmed, cut into 1/2-inch or so slices
1.5 cups strawberries, tops trimmed, sliced in half
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp of quick cooking tapioca
1/4 tsp kosher salt
zest from 1/2 an orange
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Toss all the pie filling ingredients together in a large bowl.

Super ripe, tasty local strawberries

Let sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes or so.

Assembling the Pie
1 egg + 1 tbsp water, beaten
raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Take your chilled dough out of the fridge. Let the disc you need to roll out soften up for about 15 minutes. Assemble the filling and add it to the pie shell.

Roll the top dough disc out and cover the top of the pie.

Crimp the edges together.

Here, I wrapped the whole pie up and stuck it in the fridge for about 15 minutes, as my top crust felt a little soft.

When you’re ready to bake: brush a little of the egg wash on the top of the pie and then make four slits in the top.

Sprinkle the top with some raw sugar and place the pie on a baking sheet and put in the middle of the oven. Give it 20 minutes at 400 degrees F, then turn down the oven to 375 degrees F and give it 40 more minutes. You want the pie to be in the oven for about 1 hour total.

Check after about 40 minutes and cover up the edges (either with a pie crust shield or aluminum foil) if the top edges are getting too dark. I did this to my pie about 45 minutes in.

When the pie is done, you should be able to see the filling bubbling up. Take the pie out and let it cool.

Then, enjoy!

Check out that awesomely flakey crust!

Oh my this was good. I messed around with the recipe a bit, mainly I made a 1/2 recipe of the rhubarb and a full recipe of the topping! Mahahahahaha — (that was an evil laugh).

I only had two rhubarb pieces which weighed 12 oz. That was my main reason for making a half recipe. But when I got it all mixed up, I found that I could just fill up 4 ramekins. So, I figured I would need almost all the crumbly topping of the original recipe. Right? Yes, exactly.

Recipe below is the full recipe, halve, double or quadruple as needed.

Rhubarb Crisp w/ Crunchy, Crumbly Walnut Topping
Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine
Rhubarb
24 ounces fresh rhubarb, trimmed, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 5 cups) — this is about 4 pieces
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Crumbly, Crumbly Topping
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix all rhubarb ingredients in large bowl to combine. Divide mixture among four to six 1-cup ramekins (depending on whether you are making a full or half recipe). Place ramekins on large baking sheet and bake rhubarb 10 minutes.

Take the rhubarb out of the oven after the ten minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare crumbly topping:

Mix brown sugar, chopped walnuts, flour, and butter in medium bowl. Crumble topping over rhubarb, dividing equally.

Bake until rhubarb mixture is bubbling and streusel is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Serve crisps warm with a scoop of Sage, Rosemary & Thyme Ice Milk.

Okay, the ice milk. I changed a few things here. The original recipe used different herbs and also 4 and 2/3 cups of whole milk, which is kind of silly, since then I would have a lot of full fat milk leftover that I wouldn’t use for anything else. Four cups is a quart, so I just bought a quart and used four cups and shaved a bit off the other ingredients. My adaptation is below.

I also used vanilla sugar for the sugar. Basically, a container I put a used vanilla bean pod with a bunch of sugar. The pod makes the sugar all vanilla-y. When I measured the sugar out here, it was all I had left so I threw the empty pod into my milk too.

I really liked the vanilla flavor here so either use vanilla sugar, add a vanilla bean or use some vanilla extract at the end!

Oh and I found this just as creamy as ice cream — but no cream! Also, not a lot of pictures — it’s hard to whisk and take pictures at the same time.

Sage, Rosemary & Thyme Ice Milk
4 cups whole milk
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1 3/4 tbsp cornstarch
pinch salt
4 sage sprigs
1 rosemary sprig
2 thyme sprigs
3 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract (or you can use vanilla sugar for the sugar above and add an empty vanilla bean pod or add 1 vanilla bean pod to the simmering milk)

Whisk together milk, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan. Add herb sprigs (and empty vanilla pod if you have one) and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Gently boil, whisking constantly, 1 minute.

Lightly beat yolks in a large bowl. Pour hot milk mixture through a sieve into a large bowl, pressing gently on sprigs before discarding.

Then gradually add milk to the yolks, whisking quickly until combined. Do this slowly and whisking fast or you will scramble the yolks.

Return the milk/egg mixture to the saucepan and over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for 3-5 minutes. It should register about 175 degrees F on thermometer, for you science-y, Alton Brown types.

Pour custard through cleaned sieve into a clean bowl. If you are using vanilla extract add it here and mix it in. Cool custard completely and chill in the refrigerator until cold, at least 2 hours.

I cheated here and put the hot mixture in the freezer to cool down. After about 3 hours it was cool enough to go in the ice cream maker. The best scenario is to just make this and refrigerate it the day before.

Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer ice milk to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.